Capone goes to prison - Oct 17, 1931 - HISTORY.com Capone goes to prison Publisher A+E Networks On this day in 1931, gangster Al Capone is sentenced to 11 years in prison for tax evasion and fined $80,000, signaling the downfall of one of the most notorious criminals of the 1920s and 1930s. Alphonse Gabriel Capone was born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1899 to Italian immigrants. He was expelled from school at 14, joined a gang and earned his nickname “Scarface” after being sliced across the cheek during a fight. By 1920, Capone had moved to Chicago, where he was soon helping to run crime boss Johnny Torrio’s illegal enterprises, which included alcohol-smuggling, gambling and prostitution. Torrio retired in 1925 after an attempt on his life and Capone, known for his cunning and brutality, was put in charge of the organization.

Prohibition, which outlawed the brewing and distribution of alcohol and lasted from 1920 to 1933, proved extremely lucrative for bootleggers and gangsters like Capone, who raked in millions from his underworld activities. Capone was at the top of the F.B.I.’s “Most Wanted” list by 1930, but he avoided long stints in jail until 1931 by bribing city officials, intimidating witnesses and maintaining various hideouts. He became Chicago’s crime kingpin by wiping out his competitors through a series of gangland battles and slayings, including the infamous St. Valentine’s Day Massacre in 1929, when Capone’s men gunned down seven rivals. This event helped raise Capone’s notoriety to a national level. Among Capone’s enemies was federal agent Elliot Ness, who led a team of officers known as “The Untouchables” because they couldn’t be corrupted. Ness and his men routinely broke up Capone’s bootlegging businesses, but it was tax-evasion charges that finally stuck and landed Capone in prison in 1931. Capone began serving his time at the U.S.

Penitentiary in Atlanta, but amid accusations that he was manipulating the system and receiving cushy treatment, he was transferred to the maximum-security lockup at Alcatraz Island, in California’s San Francisco Bay. He got out early in 1939 for good behavior, after spending his final year in prison in a hospital, suffering from syphilis. Plagued by health problems for the rest of his life, Capone died in 1947 at age 48 at his home in Palm Island, Florida. Related Videos The Trial of Al Capone (1931): An Account Wilson filed the letter away. A year later, the letter became the trial's most contentious piece of evidence. Wilson, not a person easily intimidated, continued to identify witnesses and amass incriminating evidence. One of the last and most important witnesses to be discovered was Fred Reis, the named payee on numerous large cashier checks that Treasury assumed found their way into Capone's coffers. Reis decided to talk after having four solitary days to think about it in a cockroach-infested jail in Danville, Illinois.

He admitted, first to agents and then in testimony before a Chicago grand jury, that his boss was Capone, and that the checks represented Capone's net profits at his Cicero gambling hall. With Reis's statement, prosecutors decided they had enough evidence to go before a grand jury. (After completing his grand jury testimony, Reis was shipped off to South America for safekeeping until trial.) On March 13, two days before the statute of limitations would have run, the grand jury indicted Al Capone for evading federal income taxes in 1924. Two months later, the grand jury added counts for the years 1925 to 1929. Over the three months that followed, Capone's attorneys met frequently with U. S. Attorney George E. Q. Johnson to discuss a possible plea bargain. With witnesses to try to keep alive and with thorny legal questions concerning the charges, Johnson was willing to listen, hoping to get a two-and-a-half year sentence out of the negotiations. With an agreement for the two-and-a-half year sentence apparently in place, Al Capone appeared on June 18, 1931 before Federal Judge James H.

Wilkerson and entered a plea of guilty. Wilkerson adjourned court until July 30 to consider the plea. On the day before his expected sentencing, Capone told reporters, "I've been made an issue and I'm not complaining, but why don't they go after all those bankers who took the savings of thousands of poor people and lost them in bank failures?" The next day, Judge Wilkerson surprised nearly everyone. Addressing Capone in his pea-green suit, Wilkerson announced, "The parties to a criminal case may not stipulate as to the judgment to be entered." There would be no plea bargain. There would be a trial. Wilkerson continued: "It is time for somebody to impress upon the defendant that it is utterly impossible to bargain with a Federal Court." The Trial Federal Judge James H.

Wilkerson About two weeks before the scheduled start of the Capone trial, informant Eddie O'Hare notified Wilson that Capone's organization had a complete list of prospective jurors and was already "passing out $1,000 bills," promising political jobs, giving away tickets to prize fights, and "using muscle too." Skeptical of O'Hare's claim at first, Wilson quickly came around when O'Hare produced the names and addresses of ten jurors, names 30 to 39 on the jury list. Concerned that thousands of hours of work was about to go down the drain because of a fixed jury, Wilson and U. S. Attorney Johnson related O'Hare's story to Judge Wilkerson in his chambers. Wilkerson told the men that he hadn't yet received his jury list for the Capone trial, but when he did he would call them. When the names on Wilkerson's list turned out to match exactly with the names on O'Hare's list, the judge met once again with Wilson and prosecutors. The judge seemed curiously unconcerned. "Bring your case into court as planned, gentlemen," he told the government's attorneys.

"Leave the rest to me." The Trial of Alphonse Capone opened on the morning of October 5, 1931 at the federal courthouse in downtown Chicago. Capone, accompanied by his bodyguard, smiled at jurors as he strolled into court in his mustard-colored suit. Judge Wilkerson took his seat at the bench and looked out over the packed courtroom. He called the bailiff to the bench. "Judge Edwards has another trial commencing today," he told the bailiff. "Go to his courtroom and bring me his entire panel of jurors; take my entire panel to Judge Edwards." After a jury of twelve was seated, and after Assistant U. S. Attorney Dwight Green outlined the 23 charges of tax evasion against Capone in the government's opening statement, George Johnson called his first witness. Charles W. Arndt, a tax collector for the United States, told jurors that Al Capone failed to file any tax return at all during for the years 1924 through 1929. The Hawthorne Hotel and Smoke Shop in Cicero, Illinois The prosecution presented evidence that Capone owned gambling halls and derived substantial profits from those businesses.

Chester Bragg testified that when he participated in the citizens' raid on the Hawthorne Smoke Shop, a gambling hall in Cicero, Capone arrived on the scene. As Bragg guarded the front door while other citizens carted out gambling machines and loaded them into trucks, Capone attempted to push his way in. Bragg testified that he asked Capone, "What the hell--do you think this is a party?" and that Capone answered, "I'm the owner of this place." Reverend Henry Hoover, leader of the Cicero raid, also testified . Hoover said that Capone complained to him during the raid, " Why are you fellows always picking on me?” and warned, "This is the last raid you'll ever pull." Leslie Shumway, the cashier at the Hawthorne Smoke Shop, presented the most damning evidence of the day. Shumway described the accounting procedures used at the gambling hall and estimated that the profits for the two years he worked there were over $550,000. When Shumway balked at positively identifying Capone as the owner of the establishment, prosecutors tried a different tack, asking questions whose answers seemed to assume Capone exercised control over the business.

Jacob Grossman asked Shumway, "Did you any time after that have any conversation with Al Capone about carrying money over there?" The witness answered, "It was some time later that Al asked me what I would do if I got stuck up, and I told him, I says, 'I would just let them take it,' and he says, 'That is right.'” On October 8, the courtroom erupted in heated debate when the prosecution sought to introduce the letter of Capone's tax lawyer, Lawrence Mattingly , which expressed his willingness to settle his client's tax liability for the years 1924 to 1929. Defense attorney Albert Fink argued, "A lawyer cannot confess for his client." Surely, Fink noted, Capone never meant to give Mattingly the "authority to make statements that may get him into the penitentiary." The controversy developed with Frank Wilson on the stand , describing the events in his office the previous fall when Mattingly first tossed the letter in his direction with the statement, “This is the best we can do. Mr.

Capone is willing to pay the tax on these figures.” After argument on the letter's admissibility with the jury excused, Judge Wilkerson announced his decision: the letter would be admitted to show that the statement was made, but the contents of the letter could not be considered by the jury as proof of the statements made. A series of prosecution witnesses presented evidence of Capone's lavish lifestyle. Parker Henderson testified that he sold Capone his Palm Island, Florida estate, with the title placed in his wife's name. "I asked Al if he was interested in buying any property and he said he was," Henderson told jurors. "So we made an appointment with him and carried him out and showed him several places. This place on Palm Island he seemed to like very much. Later he told me he had decided to take it. He gave me all money to put up the binder." Morrissey Smith , a clerk at Chicago's Metropole Hotel told jurors that Capone purchased the hotel's most expensive suites and hosted expensive parties.

Asked in what denominations Capone would pay his bills, Smith replied, " Oh, hundred dollar bills, sometimes five hundred dollar bills." Smith's comment prompted gasps from many of the courtroom's Depression-impoverished spectators. Florida dock-builder H. F. Ryder testified that he saw enough money in Capone's Palm Island estate cupboard "to choke an ox." The final key witness for the prosecution was Fred Reis, cashier of the Cicero gambling house in 1927. Reis placed the hall's profits for 1927 at "around $150,000." Reis testified that he saw Capone when he was taking bets in the hall. "Capone came by and said, 'Hello, Reis.' I said, 'Hello, Al.'” Jacob Grossman asked Reis about 43 cashier's checks, representing the hall's profits, that were purchased from a Cicero bank. Reis testified that he had bought the checks (made out to "J.C. Dunbar," an alias used by Reis) and turned them over to Bobby Barton. Underneath the signature of "J.C.

Dunbar" on one of the checks was the signature of Al Capone. The defense presented its case in a single day. Defense attorneys tried to present Capone as a horse-racing addict who lost as much money as his businesses earned during the years in question. (Gambling losses are only deductible against gambling winnings, so even if the defense testimony was accepted, it would hardly have absolved Capone from his duty to pay taxes on the income from his many businesses.) Bookie Milton Held testified that Capone lost "three or four hundred dollars" at a time betting on horses, and that he was a consistent loser. Oscar Gutter , another bookie, estimated that Capone lost $60,000 betting with him in 1927. After its parade of six bookies had ended, the defense rested its case, having shown that Capone might have lost $327,000 in six years of betting. The team of prosecution lawyers that convicted Al Capone (U.S. Attorney George E. Q.

Johnson is seated) In his summation for the defense, Albert Fink told the jury to stand as a bulwark against an oppressive government that was just using the tax law "as a means to stow Al Capone away." He described the government's evidence against his client as "chaff" that "does not prove gross income." He urged the jury not convict Capone merely because he was "a bad man": "He may be the worst man who ever lived, but there is not a scintilla of evidence that he willfully attempted to defraud the government out of income tax." Then Fink switched gears and concluded by arguing that far from being a bad man, Capone was "open-handed," "generous," and "the kind of man who never fails a friend." Capone was not the type of "miser" or "tinhorn" or "piker" who would try to cheat the government out of its due, Fink said. Michael Ahern, summing second for the defense, returned to the theme of an oppressive government bent on using questionable means to put Capone in jail to satisfy the newspapers and the persecutors.

"You, gentlemen," he told the jury, "are the last barrier between the defendant and the encroachment and perversion of the government and the law in this case." Prosecutor Jacob Grossman noted in his summation that Capone described himself as "a gambler, a realtor, a cleaner and a presser and a dog race-track owner." He pointed out that the defendant lived "like a bejeweled prince" and "spent thousands of dollars without thinking twice." Samuel Clawson emphasized the incriminating nature of the "Mattingly letter," which he said proved that Capone knew he was guilty of tax evasion. He added that "even a child" could deduce from Capone's lavish lifestyle that he had a huge income. The last lawyer to address the jury was U. S. Attorney George Johnson . Johnson said, "This is a case that future generations will remember....They will remember it because it will establish whether a man can so conduct his affairs that he is above the government and above the law." At 2:42 P.M. on October 18, the jury left the courtroom to begin its deliberations. They filed back into the courtroom eight hours later with their verdict in hand .

When the clerk pronounced the word "Guilty" (on the charge of tax evasion for 1925) reporters dashed to phones to report the news. Six days later, Judge Wilkerson imposed a prison sentence of eleven years, the longest term ever handed down for tax evasion. Capone, as he was led in handcuffs to a courtroom elevator, yelled, "I'm not through fighting yet." Appeals failed . Capone served time in federal penitentiaries in Atlanta and at Alcatraz. In November 1939, after serving less than eight years, he was released while suffering from paresis caused by untreated syphilis. On January 25, 1947, Capone died of a stroke in Palm Island, Florida. BBC NEWS | UK | England | Leicestershire | Police hail 'Al Capone' tactics Police hail 'Al Capone' tactics The new crime team has seized 150 fake passports in six months Foreign gangsters in the East Midlands are being caught by police using "Al Capone" style tactics. A special team of officers is working with immigration staff to thwart foreign criminals.

Unable to convict the suspected criminals in connection with drugs and gun offences, the team is using immigration laws to trap their targets. Immigration minister Liam Byrne compared the strategy to the way police caught Al Capone by using tax laws. It's a bit like Al Capone in Chicago...in the 1930s. They actually busted him for a tax offence Liam Byrne The new East Midlands' Foreign National Crime Team includes 27 police officers from Nottinghamshire, Leicestershire, Lincolnshire, Derbyshire and Northamptonshire and six immigration officers who work together to tackle immigration crime. Since the pilot began in September 2007, 175 foreign nationals have been arrested by the team. It has deported 22 foreign criminals and has 26 cases pending. Mr Byrne said the new Foreign National Crime Teams would deport criminals under immigration laws. "It's a bit like Al Capone in Chicago...in the 1930s. They actually busted him for a tax offence." Al Capone was a Chicago-based gangster who ran protection and alcohol rackets. He was never convicted for these offences but was eventually jailed in 1931 for income tax evasion.

The Foreign National Crime Team scheme is being extended nationally following a pilot in the East Midlands. Mr Byrne said if police had a criminal in the community they were finding it hard to prosecute, they could use immigration powers "to deal with the problem". Advertisement The scheme piloted in the East Midlands is going nationwide "The UK Border Agency (UKBA) deports one person every eight minutes but we want to make sure the people we deport first are foreign nationals who have broken the law "What we're doing is putting the full range of immigration laws at the disposal of the police to help solve local crime problems and keep communities safer. "These people are breaking the law in very serious ways - they can be drug dealers, suspected murderers and rapists. Often these are individuals where witnesses are intimidated and it can be quite hard to build a case. "Where we can actually prosecute them it is for breaking immigration laws or having the wrong kind of documents and we can get those people out of the UK and get them out fast." The East Midlands team has already had some successes with deporting serious criminals. In one case, a 45-year-old man from St Vincent in the West Indies was arrested on suspicion of being a leading member of a Leicester-based gang.

He was suspected of involvement in drug dealing, using guns and serious assaults including rape. Using immigration powers, he was deported. In Derby, a Jamaican drug dealer was found to be a failed asylum seeker using different identities. After his arrest, he gave the police detailed information about suspected drug dealers in the city. 'Significant criminality' Assistant Chief Constable of Leicestershire Police Chris Eyre said the team was not about stigmatising foreign nationals but protecting some of the most "vulnerable people" in East Midlands communities. He also said that during the pilot, 150 forged passports had been seized, some of which were bought for ï¿½6,000. "Seizing passports is one tactic we use to identify people who are committing criminal immigration offences. "We are dealing with offences from identity crime, right the way through to people who are involved in high level drug importation, human trafficking, trafficking women for the sex trade and labour exploitation...the range of criminality is significant." 8 Things You Should Know About Al Capone - History Lists History Lists There's more than meets the eye to Al Capone, the Prohibition-era leader of organized crime in Chicago.

Share this: 8 Things You Should Know About Al Capone Author 8 Things You Should Know About Al Capone URL During America’s Prohibition era, Al Capone headed a Chicago-based crime empire that raked in millions of dollars each year through bootlegging, gambling and other illicit activities. Check out eight surprising facts about the notorious mob boss. Capone was in a street gang as a child. Born on January 17, 1899, in Brooklyn, New York, Alphonse Capone was the fourth of nine children. His parents, Gabriele, a barber, and Teresa Capone, were immigrants from Angri, Italy. Capone belonged to a street gang as a boy and dropped out of school in sixth grade, later joining the Five Points Gang in Manhattan and working as a bouncer and bartender at the Harvard Inn, a Coney Island bar owned by mobster Frankie Yale. In 1918, he married Mae Coughlin; the couple remained together until Capone’s death and had one child, Sonny. By 1920, Capone had moved to Chicago.

Some stories claim he went there out of a need to lay low after severely injuring a rival gang member in a fight, while other accounts say Capone was recruited to come to Chicago by Johnny Torrio, a former Brooklyn mobster then making his mark on organized crime in the Windy City. He hated his famous nickname. In 1917, Capone’s face was slashed during a fight at the Harvard Inn, after he insulted a female patron and her brother retaliated, leaving him with three indelible scars. Capone would attempt to shield the scarred side of his face in photographs, and tried to write them off as war wounds—although he never served in the military. After achieving prominence as a gangster, Capone was dubbed Scarface by the press, a nickname he intensely disliked. Criminal associates referred to the mob boss as the Big Fellow, while friends knew him as Snorky, a slang term that meant spiffy. Capone’s crime gang raked in as much as $100 million annually. After arriving in Chicago, Capone worked for Torrio, who was part of a criminal network headed by a man named Big Jim Colosimo.

When Colosimo was killed (possibly as a hit ordered by Torrio and carried out by Capone’s former boss Frankie Yale), Torrio took over as boss and made Capone one of his key aides. In January 1925, Torrio was gunned down outside his Illinois home. He survived the attack but left Chicago later that year, choosing 26-year-old Capone as his replacement. Capone expanded “the outfit,” as he referred to his underworld organization, and went on to become one of America’s leading mobsters. By some estimates, his crime syndicate pulled in around $100 million a year, the largest portion from bootlegging, followed by gambling, prostitution, racketeering and other illicit activities. A flashy dresser who liked chatting with reporters and became an international celebrity, Capone didn’t apologize for the way he made his living. He claimed to be doing a “public service” for Chicagoans, stating: “Ninety percent of the people of Cook County drink and gamble and my offense has been to furnish them with those amusements.” He was never charged in connection with the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre.

On the morning of February 14, 1929, seven men affiliated with the George “Bugs” Moran gang were shot to death while lined up against a wall inside a garage in Chicago’s Lincoln Park neighborhood. The victims included five of Moran’s criminal associates along with a mechanic who worked for him and an optometrist who hung around the group; Moran himself wasn’t there. The group of attackers consisted of at least four men, two of them dressed as police officers. The crime became known as the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre and stunned the nation. Authorities investigated a variety of theories and suspects to little avail. There eventually was ample public speculation that Capone, a Moran rival, had masterminded the murders (he was in Florida when they took place); however, he was never charged in the case, which went unsolved. Eliot Ness’s role in Capone’s downfall was exaggerated. Thanks to federal agent Ness’s best-selling memoir “The Untouchables,” which spawned a TV series and movie, he has been credited as the man who took down Capone. In fact, much of the memoir was embellished by its co-author, Oscar Fraley.

As a Prohibition agent, Ness and a small team of men raided illegal breweries and other places linked to Capone’s bootlegging operations around Chicago. Because the agents supposedly refused to accept bribes, they were dubbed the Untouchables by the press. Although Ness’s work helped lead to Capone’s indictment for Prohibition violations, the government instead focused on prosecuting the mobster for tax evasion and his 1931 conviction on those charges is what sent him to prison. Ness went on to serve as Cleveland’s director of public safety and made an unsuccessful bid for mayor there in 1947. His later years were marred by heavy drinking and he died at his home in Coudersport, Pennsylvania, in 1957, the year “The Untouchables” was published. Capone was convicted for tax fraud but not murder. Although he controlled a criminal empire and ordered hits on a multitude of his enemies, Capone managed to avoid prosecution for years by paying off police and public officials and threatening witnesses.

The mob boss finally was slapped with his first criminal conviction in May 1929, after he was arrested for carrying a concealed weapon in Philadelphia—at the time, he was on his way back to Chicago following a summit of organized-crime honchos in Atlantic City, New Jersey—and swiftly sentenced to a year in jail. He was freed in March 1930 and a month later the Chicago Crime Commission released its first-ever list of the city’s worst criminals; Capone was named Public Enemy No. 1. Meanwhile, on orders from President Herbert Hoover to nail Capone, the federal government built a case against the crime boss for income-tax fraud, and in June 1931, he was indicted on charges of tax evasion. Capone agreed to a plea deal that included a recommended prison sentence of two-and-a-half years; however, the judge in the case refused to accept the deal. Capone withdrew his guilty plea and the case went to trial. At the start of the highly publicized proceedings, the judge switched out the pool of prospective jurors after learning bribes had been offered in an effort to seat a Capone-friendly jury.

In October 1931, the all-male jury (Illinois didn’t allow female jurors until 1939) found the gangster guilty of five charges (three felonies and two misdemeanors) of the more than 20 counts against him. He was sentenced to 11 years behind bars and fined $50,000; it was the harshest sentence delivered for tax fraud up to that point. He was among the earliest federal prisoners at Alcatraz. In May 1932, 33-year-old Capone began his sentence for tax evasion at the U.S. penitentiary in Atlanta. Two years later, in August 1934, he and a group of fellow inmates were sent by train to California then transported to the recently opened federal penitentiary on Alcatraz Island in San Francisco Bay. The maximum-security prison, intended to hold criminals who were especially violent or had other disciplinary problems, had received its first contingent of federal inmates earlier that August. Because Capone wasn’t a troublemaker while locked up in Atlanta, he likely was sent to Alcatraz as a way for the government to generate publicity for its tough, new facility.

While at Alcatraz, Capone, who’d been diagnosed with syphilis during a medical exam at the Atlanta penitentiary, started showing signs of the disease, including dementia. As his condition worsened, prison doctors treated him with malaria injections in the hope that the fevers caused by malaria would wipe out the syphilis. Instead, the treatment nearly proved fatal for Capone. In January 1939, he was released from Alcatraz and transferred to the Federal Correctional Institution at Terminal Island, near Los Angeles, to serve his one-year misdemeanor sentence. Capone spent his final years out of the public spotlight. Capone was released from prison in November 1939 then underwent several months of treatment for syphilis at a Baltimore hospital. Afterward, the famous gangster spent much of his time out of the public spotlight, fishing and playing cards at the Palm Island, Florida, mansion he’d owned since 1928. In the 1940s, he became one of the first civilians to receive penicillin for syphilis, although it was too late to cure him.

In January 1947, the 48-year-old Capone suffered a stroke then came down with pneumonia; he died at his Florida home on January 25. Capone was buried at Chicago’s Mount Olivet Cemetery, near the graves of his father and one of his brothers. In 1950, the Capone family had the remains of the three men moved to Mount Carmel Cemetery in Hillside, Illinois. Tags CAPONE CONVICTED OF DODGING TAXES; MAY GET 17 YEARS CAPONE CONVICTED OF DODGING TAXES; MAY GET 17 YEARS Jury Finds Him Guilty on Two Misdemeanor and Three Felony Counts.

IT IS OUT FOR 8 HOURS Tuesday Set for Hearing Defense Motion for New Trial, Before Sentence Is Passed VERDICT PUZZLES COUNSEL But Prosecutor Accepts It After Conference--"Not Guilty" on 18 Counts Pleases Gang Chief By MEYER BERGER Staff Correspondent of The New York Times OTHER HEADLINES League Invokes the Kellogg Pact; Asks Nations' Aid:Council Drafts Identical Notes Reminding China and Japan of Peace Obligation: Further Action Planned: Session Today Will Seek Ways for Japanese Evacuation and Safety in China: Japan to Widen Demands Japan Will Await League Proposals: Tokyo Accepts Move on China Calmly, Forseeing Delay, but Continues Protest: Russian Rights Are Cited: Japanese Point Out That Soviet and 50 Others Also Signed Briand-Kellogg Pact Americans in Japan Suffer as Chinese Cooks Start Home Debt Slash by Half Is Urged in Paris as Laval's Aim Here: Le Matin Gives French 'Unofficial Opinion' as Basis of Coming Talks With Hoover: Longer Moratorum Hit: Policies on Arms Reduction, Reparations and Banking Credits Suggested in Outline: Premier Confers at Sea: He and His Seven Experts Prepare for

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Mary Bok Buys the Famous Burrell Collection Throwing New Light on Composer Hitlerites Battle Foes in Brunswick Streets; 10 Sent to Hospital on Eve of 'Nazi' Review Chicago, Oct. 17-- Al Capone was found guilty here tonight on five of the twenty-three counts contained in the two indictments brought against him by the Federal Government for income tax evasion from 1924 to 1929. Two of the five counts are misdemeanors, failure to file income tax in 1924 and 1928, each carrying possible maximum sentence of one year imprisonment and $10,000 fine. The other counts on which he was found guilty are felonies and each carries a maximum penalty of five years' imprisonment and $10,000 fine for "attempt to evade and defeat" the income tax in 1925, 1926 and 1927. Judge Wilkerson set Tuesday morning for hearing on motions by defense counsel for arrest of judgment and for a new trial.

The verdict, returned eight hours and ten minutes after the jury filed out at 2:40 P.M., was a puzzling one to all in the court room. Capone grinned as though he felt he had gotten off easily. His counsel asked that the verdict be re-read that they might grasp it. Jacob I. Grossman, Assistant United States Attorney, mumbled that he thought the finding "inconsistent" and asked for time to confer with the other members of the prosecutor's staff. Government Accepts Verdict Ten minutes later Mr. Grossman was back in the room. He announced that the government has decided that there was no inconsistency and that it was willing to have the verdict entered. Albert Fink of defense counsel then made a motion for arrest of judgment. "I will not hold your motion for arrest of judgment," said Judge Wilkerson. "I think you will make another motion." "You mean a motion for a new trial?" said Mr. Fink. "Do I waive my motion for a new trial if I make a motion for arrest of judgment?" The court did not answer. Capone faces a maximum of seventeen years' imprisonment and $50,000 fine. He did not seem to realize that.

He kept grinning at all and sundry in the court room, his bulky figure in a screaming green suit (one of the $135 ones) drawing all eyes toward him. As soon as the verdict was entered, he got out of his seat and virtually ran from the room. He rushed on lumbering feet across the dim corridor, stepped into the elevator and as soon as it touched the rotunda floor he ran out to the street to a waiting automobile. No one interviewed him. The jury was ready with the verdict at 10:50 P.M., but Capone was not there when the knock on the jury-room door gave the signal that a decision had been reached. His counsel, Michael Ahearn, telephoned to Capone headquarters in the Lexington Hotel and fifteen minutes later the bloated gang chief hustled through the door. He was panting and his bald head was dewy with perspiration. He threw his green top coat and his green hat on the counsel table, began to mop his brow and swung around to face the incoming jury. Fifty in Court for Verdict About fifty persons were in the court room at the time.

Capone tried to read the faces of the farmer jurors, but those faces gave no hint of the finding. Judge Wilkerson strode to his seat and faced the jury. "Gentlemen," he said, "have you reached a verdict?" "Yes, sir," said the foreman in a voice hardly audible. "You may hand your verdict to the clerk," said Judge Wilkerson. The verdict, written on a prepared form, was handed across the bench. The clerk cleared his voice in the hush and read: "We the jury find the defendant guilty on counts 1, 5, 9, 13 and 18 in the second indictment, and not guilty on counts 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 10, 11, 12, 14, 16, 17, 19, 20, 21 and 22." Every one, including Judge Wilkerson, seemed puzzled. All except Capone, to whom the words seemed to sound good.

The court took the verdict form and read it, then handed it back to the clerk, who reread it twice for the benefit of Mr. Fink. It was at this point that Mr. Grossman asked for time to confer with his associates on the "inconsistency" of the findings. The Capone trial started on Oct. 6 after the government had spent three years preparing for it. The cost of the investigation has been roughly estimated at $100,000, although no official figure is available. Judge Wilkerson, who heard the case, remained in his chambers as the jury deliberated. He had given an hour's charge in the afternoon, after the summation of Federal Attorney G. E. Q. Johnson. Capone, looking like a head barber off to meet his best girl, stood in the corridor after the jury went out. He was smiling, but the smile seemed the equivalent of the quavery music of the whistler passing the graveyard. The gang chief wore a very light green pinchback suit, tan shoes and mottled green tie. The vivid green draped on his 250-pound bulk made him stand out in the crowd like an elephant at an ants' convention.

Judge Wilkerson's charge was a dispassionate outline of instruction to the farmer jury. He barely touched on the evidence. He defined corpus delicti as the term is applied in this case; went over the fine distinction of "intent" and "attempt" on which the defense lawyers, Messrs. Ahern and Fink, laid so much stress throughout the trial, and gave careful instruction on presumption of innocence and on reasonable doubt. Judge Wilkerson's Charge "Mere failure to file an income tax does not constitute 'attempt' to evade or defeat the tax," Judge Wilkerson told the attentive jury. "Failure to file may be one step in an attempt to evade or defraud. Such failure must be considered in connection with all facts and circumstances in the case.

To convict, you must find beyond reasonable doubt that there was intent to defraud and also some act done in furtherance of that intent." The court took the jury through the whole list of counts in the two indictments charging Capone with "willfully failing to file," "concealing income," "attempt to evade and defeat" and "dissipating income" to escape payment of a total of $215,000 in taxes on a total income of $1,038,000 covering a six-year period. "If you believe from the evidence that the defendant had a gross income of $5,000 or over in the years 1924 to 1929, the mere fact that he might have derived that income from an illegal occupation or illegal sources does not exempt him from filing a return. In this case you may consider all the facts and circumstances shown in the evidence. "You may consider the evidence showing that the defendant lived in two hotels, the Metropole and the Lexington. You may consider the evidence with reference to the money transmitted from Chicago to the defendant in Florida.

You may consider the evidence relating to the expenditures of the defendant." A look of peace seemed to soften Capone's fat face as he listened to the charge, finger on jowl, with his right arm resting on the counsel table. He kept his lips puckered somewhat after the manner of a child listening to a lecture for some petty offense. He did not look into the judge's face. At the beginning of his charge Judge Wilkerson had pulled his seat to the angle of the bench nearest the jury box, and, leaning over it, spoke from that position. Light Saturday traffic in the Loop, sounding far off, made the only noise which crept into the court room. It was the same when Mr. Johnson, in ringing tones at the morning session, paused between sentences as he stripped from the shoulders of Capone the light mantle of generosity and innocence draped over them yesterday by defense counsel in the closing arguments. The prosecutor's voice trembled with emotion. Whenever he accused the defendant, he spun on his heel in front of the jury box and leveled a shaking finger at Capone. In his eyes were the fire of the zealot. His voice rang with sincerity. Mr.

Johnson denied that the prosecution of Capone was, as the defense attorneys asserted in their final argument, an attempt to appease public clamor. He said his office had "never entered any case with more sincerity and determination." The prosecution, he averred, was motivated by "high purpose." He took up the Robin Hood characterization of Capone, harped on by the defense. Challenge to Capone "I have been amazed," Mr. Johnson said, shaking his iron-gray mane, his glasses glinting in the court room lights, "I have been amazed by the attempt of counsel to put a halo of mystery and romance around the head of this defendant." He swung on the smiling Capone. "Who is this man? Who is he?" The lithe prosecutor pivoted again and faced the jury. The farmers in the box were all ears. They seemed to hang on every vibrant syllable. "Is he the little boy in the second reader who found the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow? Is he a Robin Hood? You remember how Robin Hood in the days of the barons took from the strong and the rich go give to the poor, to the peasants?

"Did Robin Hood buy $8,000 worth of diamond belt buckles to give to the unemployed? Was it a Robin Hood who bought a meat bill of $6,500 in Florida? Did that meat go to the unemployed? No! It went to the Capone home on Palm Island to feed the guests at nightly poker parties." With quavering bitterness, the prosecutor with the face of a poet attacked the defense for telling the jury yesterday that the government sought to "con" a verdict on meagre evidence, merely because the defendant was Alphonse Capone. He referred to "con" as a "very ugly word." Mr. Johnson spoke scathingly of the diamond belt buckles, the automobiles, the lavish furnishings of the Capone home and the heavy expenditures for personal adornment, as testified to by government witnesses. In the stress and passion of his talk, he referred to Capone's $27 silk shirts as "those $27,000 silk shirts," but few seemed to notice that. At least no one laughed. Attention never wavered. The jurymen seemed to have turned to men of stone. They were obviously deeply impressed.

The prosecutor compared the lavish expenditures of the defendant with the expenditures of ordinary folk, and then his voice became still more bitter. "Every morning," he cried, gesturing toward the windows, "thousands go down these streets to their daily work, and every one of them must pay an income tax on every dollar they earn above $1,500. But this man, with all the money he spends for diamond belt buckles, cannot pay the tax to the government. "If the time ever comes when our people pay taxes only when the government must hound them and investigate them, then the government will fail, justice will disappear, our courts will be swept aside and organized society revert to the jungle." On the failure of the defense, in summing up, to account for the $77,000 in money orders received by Capone in Miami in 1928, Mr. Johnson had much to say. And he went into the evidence in an effort to prove that the government witnesses had fully established Capone's interest and ownership of the Cicero gambling house. "No income," he cried.

"How about $27.00 shirts, diamond belt buckles and $116,000 lost on the races?" Mr. Johnson attacked the character of the defense witnesses, the nine bookmakers who testified to upward of $300,000 which Capone lost at the track. "Some men get on the stand and say they are brokers," he said. "Some say they are commission men. But when we strip off their false faces we find every one of them a gambler, living outside the law. That's the character of the defense witnesses." Quiet reigned in the deep sun-lit chamber. Deep shadows brooded in the far corners where the Colonial fathers, in the mural paintings, looked down on Capone and the hushed audience. Calls Case a Test of Law "This is not a case of prosecution prompted by public clamor," Mr. Johnson resumed. "The United States Attorney was never more sincere or more determined than in this case. We are not trying to 'con' a verdict. We present the case with high purpose.

"I agree with defense counsel that future generations will remember this case, not because it was the case of Al Capone; they will remember it because it will establish whether any man can put himself above the law, whether he can so conduct his affairs that he can put himself beyond the reach of the law. "There is no use denying there is a great public interest in the case, but I am asking you to treat it as if the defendant were John Brown and Not Alphonse Capone. I am only asking you to be fair, fair to the defendant and fair to the government. I know that, when you weave the facts of this case together in the design there will appear the words of this defendant's guilt." Three years of investigation, carrying men of the Internal Revenue Department into Florida, South America and other far-off places, were put in by the government to assemble data and get its witnesses. One of the witnesses for the government, the gambler Ries, had fled from the country after his testimony in the income tax case of Guzik, Capone's "financial secretary," and had to be brought back and put under strong guard. He was an important witness.

It was an interesting trial, throwing new light on the character of the legend-smothered Capone. It gave a glimpse into his home life and personal habits, his love of flashy clothes and jewelry and of his climb from the lowly position of a $75-a-week punk for Johnny Torrio, head of Chicago's gangsterdom and master panderer, to undisputed control of all the illegal sources of revenue in the city and its suburbs. Al Capone 85-AZ Official Bookstore Al Capone at Alcatraz Al Capone still remains one of the most notable residents of “the Rock.” In a memoir written by Warden James Johnston, he reminisced about the intensity of public interest around Capone's imprisonment, stating that he was continually barraged with questions about “Big Al.” Each day newspapers and press flooded his office with phone calls, wanting to know everything from how Capone liked the weather on “the Rock,” to what job assignment he was currently holding. Before arriving at Alcatraz, Capone had been a master at manipulating his environment at the Federal Penitentiary in Atlanta.

Despite strict convictions from the courts, Capone was always able to persuade his keepers into procuring his every whim, and often dictated his own privileges. It was said that he had convinced many guards to work for him, and his cell boasted expensive furnishings which included personal bedding along with many other amenities not extended to other inmates serving lesser crimes. His cell was carpeted, and also had a radio around which many of the guards would sit with Al conversing and listening to their favorite radio serials. His friends and family maintained residence in a nearby hotel, and each day he was flooded with visitors. Capone started his life of crime at a young age. Rumored to have started pimping prostitutes before reaching puberty, he was raised on the tough streets of Brooklyn and earned extra money as a bouncer in various brothels. By the age of twenty, Capone had moved to Chicago and was managing a popular nightclub named The Four Deuces. By 1924, Capone had his hand in various rackets, including prostitution rings, bootlegging, and gambling houses and was believed to be earning over $100,000 per week.

Capone had mastered the art of politics, and as a wealthy, powerful gangster figure, he attempted to balance his activities. Despite his illegitimate occupation, he had become a highly visible public figure. He made daily trips to City Hall, opened soup kitchens to feed the poor, and even lobbied for milk bottle dating to ensure the safety of the city's children. City officials often were embarrassed by the politic strength of Capone, and began leveraging his illegal activities through police raids, along with setting intentional fires to his places of business. In the beginning, the public glamorized Capone's activities and identified with him as a modern day Robin Hood. It wasn't long, however, before the public started weighing against him when it was believed that he had ordered the death of a famed local prosecutor named Billy McSwiggin. The young prosecutor had before tried to pin Capone with the violent murder of a rival gang member and he had a reputation for going after bootleggers. Although many speculated against Al's involvement in McSwiggin's death, there was a great outcry against gangster violence, and public sentiment went against Capone. Capone quickly went into hiding, fearing he would be tried for McSwiggin's murder.

He remained out of sight for nearly three months, and then after realizing he couldn't live the remainder of his life underground, he negotiated his surrender to the Chicago Police. The authorities eventually recognized that they lacked sufficient evidence to bring Capone to trial, and though very unpopular with public opinion, he was set free. The public was outraged and law officials were left embarrassed. “Big Al” had become one of the most powerful crime czars in Chicago. It was said that Capone was now big as life, and more powerful than the mayor himself. By 1929, Capone's empire was worth over $62,000,000, and he was ready to wage war on his most prominent bootlegging rival, George “Bugs” Moran. Bugs was also one of the principal Chicago gangsters. He was known to publicly talk against Capone, and maintained a sense of spiteful arrogance that was said to anger Capone so much that Moran became one of Al's routine topics of discussion. It was rumored that Capone gave orders to take Bugs down by assassinating his gang members from the bottom, not stopping until they reached Bugs.

Personal letters and original documents are included in the book “Letters from Alcatraz” by Michael Esslinger. Al Capone at U.S.P. Alcatraz - AZ# 85 Al Capone at U.S.P Atlanta on May 4, 1932 Capone playing cards during his transfer to U.S.P. Atlanta on the Dixie Flyer. Capone in May of 1929 The Alcatraz Warden's Notebook Card on Al Capone, 85-AZ (tap/click photo to enlarge). Capone was living lavishly in Palm Beach, and assigned one of his top associates “Machine Gun” McGurn to mastermind the hit. McGurn had one of his bootleggers lure members of the Moran gang into a garage to buy liquor at an unreasonably cheap price. The deal was made and the delivery was scheduled to take place on Valentines Day. McGurn and his men awaited them in stolen police uniforms. When they arrived, McGurn's gang pretended to be police making a bust, and ordered all of Moran's men to stand facing the wall. Thinking that they had just been caught by police, seven members of the Moran gang turned to the wall awaiting arrest.

McGurn and his men opened fire with machine guns, fatally killing the gangsters. Bugs, who saw the police car before stopping and thought it was a raid, fled the scene. Capone was credited with what would be deemed one of the most famous mass murders in American history, the St. Valentine's Day Massacre. The St. Valentine's Day Massacre received national attention, and Capone was glamorized in books and newspapers across the country. Capone was a high class, family oriented and self-made gangster-millionaire who now had the attention of everyone. Many of the local politicians were complaining about Capone and his self proclaimed political stature. The publicity ultimately backfired and attracted the attention of President Herbert Hoover. Having just started his presidential term, Hoover demanded that Capone be brought to justice. Andrew Mellon, the Secretary of the Treasury, was pressured by Hoover to spearhead the government's battle against Capone. Mellon collected harsh evidence against “Big Al” which exploited his gang affiliations, bootlegging, prostitution rings, and flagrant evasion of taxes. It would take nearly five years and an intensive undercover operation before Capone was finally convicted.

On October 17, 1931, Alphonse Capone was sentenced to 11 years, $50,000 in fines, and was forced to pay court fees totaling over $30,000. The judge refused to allow Capone to be released on bail and he was confined at the Cook County Jail until arrangements were made for his transfer to Atlanta. On May 4, 1932, Capone began serving out his federal prison sentence at Altanta. Capone quickly flaunted his power and started to again have the ability to dictate his privileges. He was given unlimited access to the Warden, and was said to maintain large reserves of cash hidden in his cell, often generously “tipping” guards who would assist him by yielding to special requests. His time spent at Atlanta would not be as plush as when he was confined in Cook, but he still had means to manipulate the system. In 1934, Attorney General Homer Cummings along with Sanford Bates, the head of the Federal Prisons, made arrangements to send Capone to a facility where he would be unable to leverage the system. Alcatraz was the perfect answer to a problem that no one could seem to control.

In August of 1934, without any formal notice, Capone was placed on a secure prison railroad car, on a journey along with 52 other inmates to America's Devil Island. From the first moment of his arrival, Capone worked to manipulate the system. Warden Johnston had a custom of meeting the new “fish” when they first arrived at Alcatraz, and usually participated in their brief orientation. Johnston wrote in a later memoir that he had little trouble recognizing Capone while he stood in the lineup. Capone was grinning, and making quiet smug comments from the side of his mouth to other inmates. When it became his turn to approach Warden Johnston, it appeared that he wanted to show off to the other inmates by asking questions on their behalf in a leader-type role. Johnston quickly provided him his prison AZ number, and made him get back in line with the other convicts. During Capone's time on Alcatraz, he made several attempts to con Johnston into allowing him special privileges, but all were denied. Johnston maintained that Capone would not be given any special rights and would have to follow the rules as would any other inmate.

Capone eventually conceded and one day made the comment to Johnston, “It looks like Alcatraz has got me licked.” Capone spent 4 ½ years on Alcatraz and held a variety of jobs. Capone's time on Alcatraz was not easy time. Capone got into a fight with another inmate in the recreation yard and was placed in isolation for eight days. While working in the prison basement, an inmate who was standing in line waiting for a haircut, exchanged words with Capone and stabbed him with a pair of shears. Capone was admitted into the prison hospital and released a few days later with a minor wound. Capone eventually became symptomatic from syphilis, a disease he had evidently been carrying for years. In 1938, he was transferred to Terminal Island Prison in Southern California to serve out the remainder of his sentence, and was released in November of 1939. Capone died on January 25, 1947, in his Palm Island Mansion from complications of syphilis.

Capone's cell at Eastern State Penitentiary (Credit: Eastern State Penitentiary Museum) Capone being transferred to the federal prison in Atlanta in May of 1932. Actual letters and original documents from Capone are included in “Letters from Alcatraz” by Michael Esslinger. Al Capone's Alcatraz Cell: B-181 (Later renumbered to B-206) Al Capone in Miami Florida, Circa 1930's Capone on Alcatraz in 1934.

Question: For what offence was Al Capone jailed?
Answer: Tax evasion